ghost
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,994
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Post by ghost on Apr 20, 2023 14:15:00 GMT -5
Neither one killed the business as the WWE brand was already well established by that point and has only grown since. If you mean which of the two was more horrendously booked, then it's easily HHH/Punk. The Summerslam finish was at least the end game to that Nexus feud. Cena was going to defeat the Nexus at some point. If it wasn't Summerslam then it would have been a few months later, but it was going to happen regardless. The HHH/Punk story was not only poorly written but poorly executed as well, and Punk lost momentum right after it (which was a trend with late-2000's/early-2010's HHH feuds). HHH was set to face Undertaker at WM so he wasn't going to turn heel for Punk, which meant Punk had to be in the wrong in order for that feud to progress with HHH remaining a babyface. But if Punk was "wrong" about HHH in that story, then what the hell was the point of the feud? They just took their biggest rising star at the time, fed him to a guy who was half retired by then anyway, and then had him kiss HHH's ass on TV shortly after. The worst part is, Punk's character was "right" about HHH....they just didn't do the turn until 2013 with Bryan as the protagonist instead of Punk.
I don't think Punk beating HHH would have done anything to business, positive or negative, as no one who feuded with babyface HHH in the late 2000's ever benefitted from it whether they won or lost, but the concept of the story could have been intriguing if HHH was more heelish and eventually put him over. Instead HHH actively tried to turn some fans against Punk at a time when Punk was being portrayed as an antihero babyface, so it undercut Punk more than anything.
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Post by Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED! on Apr 20, 2023 14:19:46 GMT -5
But they only tried to build him as a draw for all of two months. That win over Tripe H could have really done a lot to help. Instead he was the guy who won the belt and left, then came back won the belt back in controversial fashion, got jumped by Kevin Nash with a bad die job, immediately dropped the title, and then doing a job to Triple H. So he ends up being an anti-authority rebel, who gets slapped down the instant he actually challenges the establishment. Then a month later Punk is Triple H's buddy when he's trying to stay in power. On one hand I think sticking with Punk more would have likely reduced in a bump in ratings if they'd taken the time to keep building on the momentum of Money in the Bank, but they just tried their damndest to make sure he lost relvance. On the other hand CM Punk was able to recover from this: The Nexus wasn't. None of them were even close to staying relevant after this. But that being said, I don't think that Nexus had quite the possibility of being what Punk could have. So they win the derailed push argument, but in terms of business, I'd say Punk takes it. Punk flirted with the main event for years, feuding with some of the biggest names. It's not like he went from feuding with Kofi Kingston to John Cena in one night. I'm not denying that Punk should have beaten Triple H, or that he would eventually become a lame character, but the intrigue over Punk prior to those events wasn't something that audiences were digging. I mean, if WWE was concerned that Punk wasn't drawing after years of being a World title contender or champion, while feuding with Orton, Undertaker, Jericho amongst others...how long would you hold out? Again, not disagreeing that the storyline became terrible, but that wasn't the the question that was being asked. Punk losing to Triple H did nothing to affect business positively or negatively. I'm talking in the sense of what could have been. What was the ceiling for Nexus if they went over? I mean Wade Barrett could have been a legit main eventer, but pretty much everybody else on that team hit the heights of what they reasonably could have been. Punk on the other hand could very well have been a mega star who could indeed have been the kind of draw they wanted him to be. But as far as him not drawing as champion/contender let's review here. World Title Run #1: Cashes in Money in the Bank on Edge. Defends against Batista, Double DQ finish after Kane attacks. Batista leaves him laying post match. Instead of a rematch against Batista, he defends against JBL at Summerslam who was barely a legit main eventer in 2004 let alone 2008. Then he's stripped of the title due to injury caused by Randy Orton. When he returns he is quietly swept back down the card with no real follow up to Orton injuring him until years later. World Title Run #2: Cashes in Money in the Bank on Jeff Hardy. Actually not a bad one. Hot feud with Jeff Hardy through the summer but ultimately loses it back to Jeff. World Title Run #3: Wins TLC match against Jeff Hardy and then beats him in a steel cage to retire him for the time being. Then has a feud with Undertaker wherein he is never portrayed as a legitimate threat to Undertaker, only winning because of a Montreal Screwjob ripoff. He is then more or less squashed a month later, and moved out of serious title contention. He is then moved into a feud with Rey Mysterio, which he loses. Then he enters a feud with the Big Show where he is constantly humiliated and ultimately loses in a three on one handicap match. Then he finally gets his follow up feud with Randy Orton... and he loses every single match. So yeah, he was a "main eventer", but WWE had made it abundantly clear that he wasn't a Main Eventer. They made it clear that he wasn't one of the real stars of WWE. Even in the Summer of Punk II, both of his wins over Cena were sketchy at best, and then Triple H beat him. A couple of clean wins over the absolute TOP guys could hve gone a long way, but by that point they'd conditioned fans to think of Punk as a joke. There was a lot of POTENTIAL business thrown away here, that could have been far more lasting than anything Neus could have done
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Apr 20, 2023 14:28:03 GMT -5
All I know is when those Best in the World shirts hit it was the first time in a long time I had seen wrestling shirts in the wild, and I had several lapsed fan coworkers ask about it.
I was also in Chicago at the time so my perspective may be slightly skewed.
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Post by "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse on Apr 20, 2023 14:31:53 GMT -5
As much as I dislike Cena the wrestler, and especially during this time period (god damn, with Cena on top this era suuuuuccckkked so badly), I don't agree with the premise of the thread. I don't see it as "killing the business" per se, but instead "squandering opportunity."
With the Nexus, there are a few factors. One, the group only had one great wrestler, and that was Daniel Bryan. And because of the necktie choke thing, Bryan got shitcanned from the Nexus out the gate. Gabriel was probably the next best wrestler, but he at an L at the Summerslam match.
The Nexus should have never lost that Summerslam match. Losing at a time when the group needed the W killed the Nexus' credibility instantly. The Nexus, and Barrett in particular, were so good at being heels that fans, unironically no less, were cheering for Cena not to give up and give in when Cena was forced to be a Nexus member the fall of 2010.
What sucks is that Barrett didn't have the in-ring skills to match his verbal ability. He was such a massive prick of a heel, and it was great! I think he was so good on the mic that despite being so limited in the ring, he could have been strapped up with the WWE title, and WWE could have road Barrett and the Nexus vs. Cena into the next year's Wrestlemania. Alas, Same Match John ended up burying Wade, literally, and under a pile of chairs by the time 2010 was done.
Like I said, "squandering opportunity." The future is not ours to see, qué será, será
As for the Summer of Punk, it's also another example of "squandering opportunity," but because WWE rushed so much of the angle then was left booking something like Punk vs. Triple H and having the wrong guy go over.
Punk should have stayed off WWE programming until Summerslam. To hype the angle, Punk should have been all over TV and news outside of the wrestling bubble and proclaiming himself the real world champion. Put him on Larry King. Late night TV. Good Morning America. The only thing WWE actually did was a bit of a verbal spar between Punk and Triple H at Comic Con. So out of the gate, the angle was hampered.
WWE should have booked the end of the tournament to crown a new WWE champion at Summerslam instead of Raw. And I think there was also some "John Cena is a shitty friend" stuff with Rey Mysterio at the time, so that's another mark in the "John Cena was the dogshit worst" column. Anyway, what WWE should have done was book Cena becoming the new champ at Summerslam, then Punk returns, then you do title for title at Night of Champions.
Instead, John Cena is a shitty friend to Rey Mysterio, Punk loses the belt to Alberto Del Rio at Summerslam through MITB shenanigans, Cena beats ADR at Night of Champions to win the belt (ugh, this sucked so much), and Punk loses (?!?) to Triple H at Night of Champions, and somehow this feud ends with Triple H and Kevin Nash in a Sledgehammer Ladder Match at TLC in December.
I think the Rock lurking in the background of all this also killed a lot of the creative at the time because WWE was dead-set on doing Rock vs. Cena I at Wrestlemania 28 and Rock vs. Cena II at Wrestlemania 29. A lot of the booking was in a holding pattern during this time, and Rock vs. Cena II really should have been Punk vs. Cena or Punk vs. Cena vs. Rock instead of what we got, which was a flat fart of a finish that was an update of the old-timer putting over the blue chipper, like Rock vs. Hogan at Wrestlemania was a decade prior, but the Rock in 2013 wasn't Hogan in 2002, and Cena in 2013 wasn't the Rock in 2002, and it all felt pointless and worthless from a fan perspective, even though WWE did big business with the Rock stuff at the time.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Apr 20, 2023 14:38:18 GMT -5
I feel like the mistake w/ Punk wasn't the Triple match but rather having him return so quickly when you could've done a lot more with that angle.
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Apr 20, 2023 14:53:17 GMT -5
Neither killed business. From a booking standpoint though I would say HHH beating Punk was worse. Made no sense at all with them trying to cement Punk as a top babyface and him winning the belt back a few months later.
I'm sorry but Nexus sucked. I hated Cena at the time and even I couldn't understand why that was considered such a bad decision that is still bitched about all these years later. With Nexus while it was a cool angle problem was it was just a bunch of green rookies who weren't ready for that spot. They did cool beatdowns but once they actually had to wrestle and have matches they were exposed quickly. Other then Gabriel and Slater they were all sub par workers and the only one who had main event potential was Barrett who still rough in the ring despite having everything else going for him. And Barrett ended up getting up his win over Cena at I think the next PPV anyways and the group was still pushed as the top heels on Raw through the rest of the year. So it's not like they were depushed or anything afterwards. I guess you could argue Barrett not winning the title from Orton and Cena then winning it from him at Mania was a bigger flub booking wise. However again Barrett was still kind of crap as a wrestler and they probably he felt he wasn't ready for that which is understandable.
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Post by bluebeach25 on Apr 20, 2023 18:04:30 GMT -5
I don't see how either of these killed the business.
But Nexus easly more than Punk losing to HHH! Punk didn't really got his momentum killed by that since he went on to be WWE Champion for 434 days not much later, but still absolutely brainless that HHH came out of nowhere and beat the hottest act in the Company at that point.
The Nexus thing will always be the most stupidest matchoutcome in WWE History for me. They litteraly buried the hottest Story they had in Years in only 2 months. Nexus should have destroyed Cena in that Match.
But again that's different from a Business being killed. Nexus was never going to be the NWO! You could say Starrcade 97 killed the NWO.
But Sting still is a Legend. Nexus died at Summerslam 2010
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Post by bluebeach25 on Apr 20, 2023 18:05:19 GMT -5
But great question.
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FinalGwen
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Particularly fond of muffins.
Posts: 16,529
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Post by FinalGwen on Apr 20, 2023 18:08:57 GMT -5
Wade was not ready at the time to be the main event... his matches with Cena were good... but his matches with Randy were god awful. The rest of the Nexus had hteir weaknesses hid by multiman matches... but none of them were really ready for a big main angle either. I've always put that more on Randy, pretty much every match he had around that time was dogshit. Nobody would guess that Sheamus was capable of matches like his 2/3 Falls with Bryan from watching his godawful HIAC match against Orton. Why they put the belt on him in the match that Wade won from winning NXT still baffles me.
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Post by BayleyTiffyCodyCenaJudyHopps on Apr 20, 2023 18:09:42 GMT -5
This just tells me that I would probably be a horrendous booker because most of my heel world title runs would probably cap out at like three months on average (unless the heel is super over, and even then I’d be building up the next top face while that’s happening) and my ace top babyfaces would be decisively winning feuds over heel stables.
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Post by ChitownKnight on Apr 20, 2023 18:54:40 GMT -5
If Nexus succeeds, would it have over shadowed the Shield who came in 2 years later?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2023 19:53:07 GMT -5
But the current misery booking, and even the Authroity misery booking, started long after that. Super Cena was absolutely for the kids and the sponsors and the families; it was an attempt to do the Hogan era over again to grab new eyes. It wasnt totally unsuccessful in that regard either, kids genuinely loved Cena. But adults didnt and it led to people leaving, and even some kids can get tired of the hero always winning. Nexus could have pulled off a win to make the challenge for Cena to return and conquer them later that much more satisfying. In short bursts, that's compelling storytelling, WWE just cant seem to get away from having to stick to a theme for years and years, rather than pivot story to story - in the main event anyway, they can be much better at that in the undercard. Nobody likes misery booking, but that doesn’t mean the villains should always lose. I wouldn’t argue that villains should never win, but I would argue that they shouldn’t win big matches often, and never clean.
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